


The Alternate Universe of Animorphs - Spliced

by montysaurus



Series: Animorphs - Spliced AU [2]
Category: Animorphs (TV), Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe, Andalites, Other, Taxxons, Worldbuilding, Yeerks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21558748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/montysaurus/pseuds/montysaurus
Summary: The world the characters live in is quite different from canon in many ways. Canon had some pretty "unrealistic" stuff baked into the setting. While it's not my intention to make the universe "rational", I'd be remiss as a biology graduate and longtime fan of science fiction if I didn't attempt my own take at remaking the various species of the Animorphs canon into something that comes off a little more hard sci-fi while still rhyming with what canon gave us.
Series: Animorphs - Spliced AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553698
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	1. Taxxons - The Fallen

**Biology**

Taxxons are a eusocial myriapod analogue. Taxxons live in Hives ruled by a Queen, or a group of Queens. There are four main castes - Queen, Drone, Soldier and Worker. Queens are armoured and are individually stronger and more intelligent than Workers and Soldiers. Queens have eidetic memories. Queens and Soldiers have venomous claws. Soldiers are larger, heavily armoured, and have longer legs suited for rapid movement. Some have specialized equipment, such as acid "canons", that they grow from their heads or specialized front limbs that are wielded like bladed or bludgeoning weapons. Soldier larvae require special and plentiful diets. Drones lack claws, and some of their limbs mostly specialized for mating. They have soft bodies, unsuited for combat, and very keen detection senses. Workers have a pair of claws, but most frontal limbs are suitable for carrying out all the tasks needed in the Hive (digging, gathering, eating, weaving, etc).

While the Queens are the primary reproductive parties, Workers are capable of laying a small number of eggs. These eggs are almost always Workers, and never become Soldiers or Queens. A few become Drones. Soldiers are always sterile. All Taxxons are sapient, and are capable of verbal and gestural communication. However the Queen caste are considered the most intelligent of the species. Queens also employ pheromone and telepathic communication that has a profound effect on the minds of Soldiers, Drones and Workers within their own Hive. All other castes aside from Workers subsist solely through consumption of a byproduct, jelly, made by the Worker caste.

Queens are very long-lived, their lifespan often dictates the lifespan of the Hive as a collective. They can live for up to 500 human years. The other castes are considerably more ephemeral, their lifespans are typically 50 human years or so.

**Homeworld**

Geological records show that the Taxxon homeworld was a lush planet with a mostly tropical climate as recently as ~5,000 years ago. There is archaeological evidence of a technologically advanced civilization that existed once. Radioactive and toxic wastelands that cover almost half of the surface, as well as thick cloud cover reminiscent of nuclear winter, tell a wordless story of a cataclysm that destroyed an advanced civilization and decimated the biodiversity of the planet.

The Taxxon homeworld is now somewhat barren. It is mostly arid land with a few extremely salty oceans. Around half of the land is uninhabitable due to toxic or radioactive waste leaking into the surrounding environment. There are ruins of ancient cities in these wastelands. There are very few usable metal deposits. Fungal analogues are the dominant sessile lifeforms on land. Cloud cover makes photosynthesis less efficient, and few true plant analogues exist. Most biodiversity is present in the air and the oceans. The Taxxons seem to have out-competed or domesticated most terrestrial life around their size. There are large predators that prey on lone Taxxons outside the protection of their Hive, sometimes even invading a Hive to target the larval cells.

**History**

It is strongly suspected that Taxxons are a post-apocalyptic remnant of a more advanced civilization. They clearly evolved for an environment that was a lot less arid than the present conditions on their homeworld. These survivors likely lack the material resources (abundant fuel and metals) to redevelop their civilization. They have agriculture, writing systems, manual tools and even metallurgy. Their current mode of existence is already highly labour intensive, and it is doubtful they would have been able to redevelop advanced technology without extraterrestrial intervention.

**Society**

Taxxons practice agriculture, they farm species of fungal analogues and domesticated animals outside the Hives and within it too. They supplement this with eating mineral-rich soils and clays. Hives, therefore, are quite distant from each other, surrounded by their farms. Taxxon Hives generally cluster around rivers and other sources of water, and competition for good Hive lands is fierce.

Conflict happens when a Hive splits in two, or when a young Queen with a new Hive tries to take over an older one. The Queens are the repository of knowledge, both cultural and technological. While they have writing, and of course other Taxxons are taught how to read and write, the Queens know "state secrets" that are only told to other Queens. Secrets such as how to operate relics, and the secret history of the Taxxon people.

Queens exert control over the Hive both through pheromones and telepathic communication. Workers are the Taxxons that eat food/material directly. Their bodies convert nutrients from what they consume into jelly and royal jelly. Workers have a strong drive to eat, as their digestion fuels the Hive. This process is heavily controlled by the Queens and is impossible without the chemical and telepathic signalling of a living Hive Queen.

**Recent Events**

The Yeerk invasion of the Taxxon homeworld upended the eusocial hierarchy through the use of anti-pheromones and a targeted plague which infected and killed the Queens. This caused chaos in affected Hives as the Workers' hunger instinct was no longer under control. Starving Soldiers soon fell before the weaker but more numerous and better-fed Workers. The Yeerks revealed themselves and offered solace to the Workers caught up in the hunger. During their initial covert investigations, the Yeerks considered the Taxxons a Class 5 species. They lived in orderly Hives, they were easily fertile, and the Soldier Taxxons seemed well equipped to lend their bodies to the war effort. It was only after Hive social structure had collapsed in a critical mass of the Hives, triggering a chain reaction of wider social breakdown, when their downsides were exposed.

While the Yeerks gained a mostly voluntary host species, very few Soldiers and only one Queen was ever infested. The Workers, while relatively plentiful and self-sustaining, have high metabolic needs and were difficult to control due to the hunger. This prompted a reclassification of them to Class 2 species by the Yeerk Empire. The Yeerk that controls the sole Taxxon Queen host sits on the Council of Thirteen. She was the Visser in charge of selecting the Taxxon homeworld and leading the invasion of it, and she only managed to turn an execution into a promotion solely on the strength of her unique host. Soldier Controllers can only exist under her command as elsewhere in the Empire Worker Controllers are unable to make the jelly needed to feed them.

Free Hives still exist on the Taxxon homeworld, but they have been pushed to isolated and even more barren wastelands beyond easy reach of Yeerk ground forces. They occasionally stumble upon troves of relics they use as weapons in their fight to liberate their homeworld. Most of the Workers were taken off-world to hidden Yeerk controlled planets where they mine and manufacture, powering the Yeerk's industrial war machine. Some Worker Controllers are present throughout Yeerk controlled space, used as technicians and trackers.

From the perspective of Taxxon Worker Controllers, their Queens lost their ability to run the Hives or died. They are not aware that the Yeerks specifically targeted their Queens, nor are most Yeerks below the rank of Visser. To them, they escaped an impossible situation into a merely bad one. The propaganda the Yeerks use is that they could only save one Queen from a mysterious, possibly Andalite created disease that swept the Taxxon homeworld just as the Yeerks arrived. Free Hives are dismissed as deviant groups of Worker rebels (Free Hives almost never have the resources to breed Soldiers), or rumours and lies.

Worker Controllers that stumble upon the truth are executed. Or worse, chemically induced into a mindless state and used as a way to dispose of criminals.

Castes | Pre-Yeerk Invasion | Post-Yeerk Invasion  
---|---|---  
Workers | ~1,500,000,000 | ~500,000,000 Controllers. ~50,000,000 Free  
Soldiers | ~450,000,000 | ~5,000 Controllers. ~100 Free  
Drones | ~20,000,000 | ~5 Controllers. ~50,000 Free.  
Queens | ~30,000,000 | ~1 Controller. ~100,000 Free.  
Total | ~2,000,000,000 | ~500,000,000 Controllers. ~50,000,000 Free.


	2. Andalites - The Proud

**Biology**

Andalites are a hexapod mammalian analogue with fascinating physiology. Andalites descend from one of the very few lineages discovered in the Galaxy without a mouth at the opposite end of the anus. Instead, they develop multiple "mouths" at the end of their limbs. While many related species retain them on all six limbs, Andalites and their close relatives have lost the receptacles on their front limbs. These are instead used as manipulators for grooming and tool use.

Andalites are a grazing herd species. It is theorized that the necessity for communication in a social species without mouths or strong auditory apparatus is what pushed the evolution of thought speech. A fascinating ability that has analogues in other species, but is taken to new heights in Andalites. The large brains are also thought to have evolved to accommodate this evolution. Thought speech is, in essence, a z-space entanglement of the neurons of the transmitting party with the neurons of the receptive party/parties. While most modern Andalites use this ability to broadcast only ideas, images and words, there is ongoing research into myths from their ancient past, as well as experiments with using the ability to sense or manipulate other minds. Andalites can use this ability to communicate with anything that has a similarly sapient mind, rare amongst catalogued galactic species, and have even developed computer interfaces that accept such input.

Andalites have several adaptations that make them formidable combatants. Their famous tail blades aside, which lead to the prehistoric extinction of all large terrestrial predators on the Andalite homeworld, they have redundant hearts, efficient bird-like lungs, four eyes that see into a wide spectrum, electroreception which provides them an exceptional perception of time and space, deceptively dense musculature and bone structure and a complex immune system that has few equals in xenobiology. These abundant advantages, particularly for a herbivorous species that are not generally aggressive, have sparked many theories that Andalites are a synthetic species, designed by an unknown creator. Andalite scientists dismiss these theories as nonsense.

Andalites have two sexes, and some degree of sexual dimorphism. Males grow larger than females and have larger tail blades. The two sexes tend to have different patterns on their coats, though this is not absolute. The coat patterns are determined by hormone exposure in the uterine environment. Andalites generally live for around 200 human years. Andalites are considered children for the first 20 human years, and considered adolescents for the next 10 human years after that. While capable of reproduction around 25 human years of age, they are considered fully sexually mature at around 30 human years. They remain capable of childbearing for the rest of their first century of life and siring for the next 50 human years after. Gestation takes 2 human years, and the Andalite colt emerges already capable of walking and rudimentary thought speech. After childbirth, Andalite females are generally not able to conceive again for roughly 10-15 human years.

**Homeworld**

The Andalite homeworld is roughly twice the size of Earth, it orbits a binary star system and has four moons, two of which have biospheres themselves. Its gravity is slightly higher than Earth's. Land makes up 50% of the surface area, however, because it is split into many smaller interconnected continents punctuated by many rivers and lakes rather than one large supercontinent, there are few deserts. Instead, the dominant biome is lush grasslands and loosely packed forests. The planet has relatively abundant metal, water and hydrocarbon reserves.

Biodiversity is somewhat lower than what is found on Earth. This is thought to be the result of the dominance of a single terrestrial biome and the fact that the planet has only had to endure one mass extinction event in its geological history.

**History**

As discussed earlier, early Andalites evolving both their tail blades and intelligence led to the extinction of all large terrestrial predators that preyed on their ancestors. This brought about a population boom, and soon after, local ecosystem collapse. Andalite traditions from antiquity emphasize husbandry and maintenance of their surrounding environments, as well as an aversion for large numbers of children. A reverence for life and tree worship is a constant theme across all ancient Andalite cultures, expressed in rituals Andalites carried out through daily life and for special occasions. These ancient rituals have survived with few changes, through the millennia into the modern day.

Throughout Andalite history, males have been the ones expected and encouraged to fight. Almost all military heroes throughout history are male, and this affects modern politics, because of the powerful effect the prestige of serving in the military brings to veterans. Andalites may seem, to many outsiders, are quite ableist. Their heritage as a herding prey species shines through in that they are remarkably unconcerned about individuals who are born or become disabled. These individuals are labelled vecol and forced into ritual isolation. The shock and shame of this isolation can be so great that it causes a hormonal response in the shunned Andalite, weakening their normally formidable immune systems and causing them to succumb to lethargy and hopelessness. In most cases, death soon follows this exclusion.

Andalites have been a spacefaring species for ~3000 human years, and z-space capable for ~2000, shortly after encountering and fending off The Five, a mysterious z-space capable species that was harvesting corganisms from one of the Andalite moons to use as computing components. All mining and other mineral extraction on the homeworld was banned since shortly after spaceflight development. Instead, they mine asteroids and neighbouring lifeless planets for metals and other needed material. Shortly after their society had the technological capability to automate most manual labour, Andalites returned to the sylvan lives of their ancient ancestors. Their only urban settlements on their homeworld and colonies are the spaceports.

In their 2000 years of exploring the galaxy, Andalites have only permanently colonized three exoplanets. Each planet was a barren, lifeless world painstakingly chosen for the similarities to the homeworld. All orbit stable binary stars of a similar type. All are of a similar size and gravity and have four moons that resemble those of the homeworld. All have a topology and geological features that would lend themselves to similar small continental layout. One colony candidate had only three moons, and a large planetoid was dragged into orbit to take the place of the fourth moon. These colonies were then terraformed, sculpted and seeded with lifeforms from the homeworld over several hundred years until the planets closely matched the homeworld. During these periods of terraforming, exploration and other activities slowed down to give more focus to the planning and design of the future colony. These colony worlds are considered some of the highest artistic and scientific achievements of Andalite civilization. An untrained observer visiting these planets would be hard-pressed to identify which world was the original and which world was the colony. The most recent colony world was opened for settlement 200 human years ago.

**Society**

Andalites have a democratic form of government called the Electorate. They elect representatives for every constituency of ~100 million, and these sit on the Electorate. These individuals are called Elects. These Elects draft policies and laws, but these are only put into effect upon a referendum result of 70% or more. A large majority of these Elects are male, as are the leadership of the Military and Exploration Councils. The prestige of having served in space, which is almost exclusively the domain of male Andalites, is a huge boost to those who later seek leadership roles. Female Andalites thus have enormous structural and cultural barriers to gaining authority in most institutions outside of the sciences and arts. Direct democracy is trivially easy due to z-space transponders, and all adult Andalites are taught that it is their sacred duty to weigh issues carefully before voting.

There are Great Factions, that represent a collection of distinct ethos, that many Andalites hold in higher or lower esteem. The four main Great Factions are the Military Faction, the Exploration Faction, the Science Faction and the Traditionalist Faction. Each consist of Elects and their voters that hold their faction ethos as the primary focus. Military - they want to see the Andalites as the premier interstellar power and want to build readiness for any threats to this power. Exploration - they want to explore the galaxy and discover new worlds and new minds. Science - they want to discover more secrets of the universe. Traditionalist - they want Andalites to live their best lives, and try to maintain ancient traditions. There is also a Military Council, an Exploration Council, a Science Council and an Artisan Council. Despite the names, these exist outside of the Electorate and are accountable to it for the carrying out of their purpose and missions. The Military Council currently has primacy over the other councils due to the war with the Yeerks. This is the source of much political and bureaucratic conflict.

They have an active news media that reports on all activities across the homeworlds and is an important part of making all Andalites feel united and aware of each other. Their pop culture consists of poetry and rhetoric, dance (including morph dancing), documentaries, drama, political commentary, hirac delests of historical figures and imported extraterrestrial media, generally traded from Skrit Na sources. While Andalites generally live in single-family scoops arranged in loose clusters that mark extended families, they do congregate in large numbers for festivals, recreational and political events. Andalites venerate nature and beauty, and their art and architecture attempts to reflect this in all ways. Andalite buildings are normally integrated into the environment in intricate grass-scapes and forest-weavings. They use the environment as a canvas for art, even clouds are shaped carefully for optimum beauty. As soon as they gained the capability to make eco-domes, the Dome Ship became the flagship of the Andalite military, in the face of criticisms of its combat effectiveness. Andalites also have a love of games. Organized sports such as drift ball matches and tail fighting championships can draw billions of views.

Andalites take around 25-30 human years from birth to full maturity. This long juvenile period is on the longer end for most sapients. Andalite society takes advantage of this and schooling is a long and intense road for Andalite children. They are expected to enrol at local schools as around 2 human years of age and partake in their definition of rigorous basic education for the next 18 years. After this, the next stage, as adolescents, is to take specialized training in the careers they choose at more centralized academies. Most adolescent Andalites choose two specializations, although there is no limit and particularly ambitious youths have been known to take three or four. Since the start of the Yeerk War, almost every male Andalite has chosen military training as one of their specializations, and political pressure is growing to allow young females to follow suit.

Andalites do no use a market economy. Instead, all material needs are seen to by the government. All Andalites are encouraged to apply themselves to a career or vocation, whether within the government structure or outside it. The complexity, difficulty and danger of this labour and utility and uniqueness of the outputs are factored into a score which then entitles the Andalite in question to tiers of government assistance and luxuries. These benefits can be - scoop maintenance or construction, colony movement for the extended family, leisure facility reservations, etc. Andalites serving on off-world missions (mostly young males) have the option to forward these benefits to their parents or other family members.

The Andalite Electorate exerts power in roughly a 1000 light-year radius around their homeworld. From only four homeworlds, the Electorate extends its presence through a network of space stations, orbital dockyards and observation posts. There are enclaves of other z-space capable species within this space, Ongachic and Skrit Na space stations and trade hubs, with minor polities of less established species such as the Leerans and Nahara. They are happy to accept Andalite law in exchange for the chance of trade, protection from other threats and, in the case of the Skrit Na, other activities that are not well understood. Before the Yeerk war, the Military Council's main purpose was regulation of traffic and enforcement of the Electorate's laws on these smaller polities.

There are roughly 10 billion Andalites living across the four Andalite homeworlds. In the ~30 human years since the beginning of the Yeerk War, proscriptions on multiple children have been largely removed and Andalite females encourage to bear young through benefits and incentives. As a result, there has been a baby boom of juvenile Andalites, and regardless of the result of the war, Andalite society will be significantly changed.

**Recent Events**

Since the opening of the third colony world 200 human years ago, there has been a search to find a new candidate planet for colonization. The search process happens in two stages. An Exploration Council Mission emerges from z-space and scans and catalogues all solar bodies in a system. The results of this scan determine the second stage. The presence of life means a referral to the Science Council. The presence of unusual minerals, a referral to the Artisan Council. Advanced life means a contact scenario, while primitive yet intelligent life means the system is tagged for observation and placed under a travel ban. In this way, space is mapped out and the galaxy explored. The Yeerk homeworld was one such world on the edge of Andalite space. It was scanned, and no sign of intelligent life was found. A Science Mission was called to better study the planet, lead by Prince Seerow.

Seerow was a brilliant scientist, and soon perceived the intelligence of the Gedd Controllers, and that the source of this intelligence was the Yeerks. In an unusual but not illegal deviation from procedure, he taught the Yeerks the Galard language, as well as giving them gifts of education databases and basic tools. He was excited by the high intelligence and rapid aptitude for learning the Yeerks displayed. He requested and received a fleet of transport ships to take some Yeerks to visit an Ongachic trade hub, but was on home leave visiting with his family when they arrived. The Yeerks massacred the Andalite crews, stripped the science outpost of all useful material, commandeered the transports vessels, loaded it full of millions of Yeerks in their natural state and vanished into interstellar space. Seerow was disgraced, his name used for a law that forbade Andalites from giving Andalite technology to other species, and the Exploration Faction that he was a champion of lost significant support in the Electorate.

The Escafil device is the most significant Andalite breakthrough of the past century, and its political, scientific and military impact has not been fully explored. Intended as a tool to build empathy between species as well as to heal injuries Andalite medical science previously could not, it is now more famous for use as a covert mission tool and with Visser Three's monstrous battle morphs.

In the roughly 30 human years since the Yeerks have burned through several inhabited systems on the edge of Electorate space. They have enslaved the Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, Nahara, Mak, Sstram and many others. Most of these species they found by looking through stolen Andalite exploration data. While their activities are enraging to all Andalites, they are still militarily much weaker than the Andalites and lack the strength to stand up to a full-scale space battle. However, Andalite military resources are stretched thin trying to safeguard species that have not yet been enslaved, as well as slowed by the bureaucratic conflict between Councils. The Yeerks have begun a secret invasion of the human world, and should they succeed, the balance of power could swing sharply. All previous host species they have captured have significant downsides; demographic, behavioural or biological shortcomings that humans don't have. There is also a conspiracy within the Traditionalist Faction that is leaking secrets to the Yeerks. These fanatic conspirators want the Andalites to narrowly lose the war because they believe this will force the Electorate to focus their energies inward and stay away from exploring and interacting with other species.


End file.
